Whatcom County: Cornwall Park

Imagine a block of homes with blooming gardens and the street teeming with children, surrounded by a park. In the 1960s and 70s, this was Marilyn Mastor’s view from her home with her four children and husband.

So many children lived in the neighborhood that the mailman at the time, who gave all the children Valentine’s with dimes in them, called the neighborhood “fertile valley.”

Parents with same-age children held gatherings, and those who owned boats went boating together. As the children grew and moved away and families moved on from the neighborhood, gatherings diminished and now only a half-dozen children live in the neighborhood. The neighborhood has changed, but many of the families and couples that live around Mastor have been there for 20 or so years, and the welcoming feel persists, with an open door always provided.

Mastor has lived in Whatcom County since age 4. She grew up in the Columbia neighborhood, got married at 21, moved into the Cornwall Park neighborhood, started a family, went back to school to get her design degree, started her own interior design business, and retired a year-and-a-half ago.

Drawn to the neighborhood for the sizable house, family-friendly neighborhood, and the nearby park, Mastor and her husband moved to Cornwall Park 1954—three years after the house was built. Spending most of her life in Bellingham in those two neighborhoods, Columbia and Cornwall Park, she has lived near parks in both.

To this day, at age 83, Mastor still walks around Cornwall Park, the crown jewel of the neighborhood. Despite the quieter streets, the gardens still bloom and the park holds the timelessness of nature.